As part of the second round of previously announced job cuts, Electric Boat Corp. said last week that it had issued 440 layoff notices.
Most of the cuts were at the company’s Groton, Conn., shipyard, according to spokesman Robert Hamilton.
Cybersecurity Awareness Month: What to Do When Your Identity Is Stolen
In recognition of Cybersecurity Awareness Month, it is important to remember that identity theft affects…
Learn More
Although no layoff notices were issued at the Quonset Point plant, in North Kingstown, Hamilton said 67 of the 416 layoffs in Groton were Rhode Islanders. The remaining 24 cuts were at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, in Washington state, where work on several key projects is wrapping up, he said.
In all, Hamilton said, Electric Boat plans to eliminate 1,900 to 2,400 jobs by the end of the year; company human-resources managers anticipate the number will be in the “bottom end of that range.” Many of the jobs will be eliminated through attrition, he said, but he couldn’t say how many.
Of Electric Boat’s 10,800 current employees, nearly 8,000 work at Groton. Most of the work in Groton is related to design; the approximately 2,000 employees at Quonset Point mostly manufacture submarines.
The layoffs were announced in December, wrapping up a year that had seen the company – a division of Falls Church, Va.-based General Dynamics – fighting to keep the Groton submarine base open. Electric Boat said at the time that its need to cut staffing arose from the U.S. Navy’s decisions to shift repair and maintenance work away from private contractors and cut production from two a year to one.
U.S. Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee, R-R.I., issued a statement after last week’s announcement calling the layoffs “a cause for great concern.”
“Electric Boat is an important employer – and, more critically, the work they do is vital to national security,” Chafee said. “We need to keep our defense industry strong, and Electric Boat is a necessary component of that.”
In his statement, Chafee said he has met with high-ranking Department of Defense officials, including the chief of naval operations, Adm. Michael Mullen, to talk about the importance of Electric Boat’s Quonset and Groton facilities and vital maintenance work to be performed at both locations.
Chaffee said he will push for “robust funding” for research, design and improvements to submarines in this year’s appropriation, both to save jobs and to increase the nation’s defense capabilities.
Production at Electric Boat has slowed dramatically since the 1980s, when it had six facilities, employed more than 25,000 people and manufactured 25 Navy submarines in a five-year period. In the last six years, the Navy has ordered a total of six submarines.
Despite key allocations for Electric Boat-related projects in the 2006 budget – including $20 million for a guided-missile submarine project and $30 million for a project aimed at increasing the capabilities and flexibility of Virginia-class submarines – Hamilton said, the company needs more work, particularly in the design area, that fits in with its “core capabilities.”
Officials including U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I. have pushed to bring the number of nuclear submarines produced each year back to two. But Electric Boat has previously said doubling production wouldn’t necessarily double its work force.
“The problem is that we’re still at [roughly] 11,000 workers,” Hamilton said. “With that many workers, it takes a lot” of contracts to maintain staffing levels.
The employees laid off this month all were given 60-day notice, Hamilton said. All will be offered career-transition services by the Eastern Connecticut Workforce Investment Board.
The board is seeking a $2.3 million grant, Hamilton said. After previous layoffs, he said, the board has applied for similar grants and has helped to place 90 percent of the affected workers.
